During the day today, after work, I can finally start
programming the Python for Whelkboard. Have decided its
probably best if I ditch David's initial code and use it as
a reference. Anyway its late, and work starts at 10:00 AM
as always.

Have written down a basic set of SQL table creation
commands and they are waiting for PostgresQL to become
functional. The first step for that to happen is to get
Python working with it.

PyGreSQL
Looks like a good start. Was a really simple install, just
hand compiled the shared object according to the "RedHat"
instructions that are in the README.linux file - then
copied it into the python1.5/lib-dynload directory.

mxDateTime
Gives database safe dates and times or something. Yet to
determine if it is of any use. Installed it anyway.

Well after spending several hours playing around with
PostgreSQL, I have finally set up a user who can create
tables within the database they "own". Well, upon a check
just now, it appears not. Feh. Initially the problem was
that I created my new database "whelkboard" while I was
the "postgres" user. Then I was trying to access and then
assign the database to the "wbuser" user. With no luck,
there seemed to either be no way in PostgreSQL how to
give "wbuser" the ability to create tables within it. So,
I dropped the database and created it as "wbuser". This
worked fine, and creating tables also worked fine - in psql
that is.

But, that however, is about as much help as tits on a
bull. What I really want is for the "pgdb" Python module
to create tables as that user. I can get it to connect as
that user to that database. I can execute the table
creation statements on the database with the same output as
seen in psql, but the statements don't seem to actually
create the databases. Admittedly, I think "pgdb" is
designed for PostgreSQL 6.5, but given that the messages
coming back from the version I have are the same ones I see
in psql, that seems to indicate that this isn't the
problem. God knows what is.

The next step in setting up the database structure is to
hand make the table creation statements. Here is one prime
area where open source databases suck so bad, creating SQL
server databases and tables is so easy and painless.

Trying to reinstall PostgreSQL on the MUD box. The RedHat
distribution that the box uses is such a hassle to work
with. The RPM tools just don't work and I tend to just
pretend that previously installed packages aren't installed
and just rebuild and install over the top. If it wasn't
for all the things that the box does that I simply do not
have time to recreate, I would switch to Debian or
Slackware.

First priority is the new boards system for Imaginary
Realities. Which is why I am installing PostgreSQL -
currently Whelkboard uses pickled python save files and the
first step is to convert it to use a database backend.

Quite a few popular open source software seems to suck.
Take for example PostgreSQL - what a nightmare to set up
from source, it compiled fine and installed badly - at
least compared to other packages I have installed using my
usual technique. Then there was no obvious documentation
to show how to get things running. And to think I used to
curse Microsoft for bad documentation.